Izvorni znanstveni članak
Social media revolutions: A comparison between Egypt and Moldova’s online social movements
Bogdan Ivaşcu
; Nacionalna škola za političke studije i javnu upravu, Odjel za komunikaciju i odnose s javnošću, Bukurešt, Rumunjska
Sažetak
Technological inovations in the IT and mobile communication fields transformed the means of communication between individuals. This fact allowed the growth of the individual’s adaptability to unforseen situations within the network society model (Castells:1996, Van Dijk: 2006). With the emergence of the internet, this new type of society began manifesting a flexibility never before encountered in previous societal models.
Behaving like a social barometer, social media offers to the individual the possibility of action upon social reality from within an artificial zone. Thus, we witness the birth of a mechanism that has the potential to generate leverage in the process of civic engagement, for the benefit of society and individuals alike. In recent years, social movements and support groups found within social media a new environment of expression, from where to voice their objectives and coordinate their actions without the need of spatial proximity.
Having this new social reality as a starting point, this study proposes to identify some aspects of the relation between civic engagement and the role played by social media, specifically the social networking site Twitter, during the social movements in Moldova (April 2009) and Egypt (January 2011). The study will also provide a comparison between Twitter’s roles in both Moldova and Egypt. Additionally, the analysis offers a new approach of recent social movements, contributing to the academic literature studying Twitter’s increasing civic and political usage, beyond its initial socializing scope. In order to do so, we first propose a theoretical incursion to clarify key concepts.
Ključne riječi
social media; Twitter; civic engagement; network society
Hrčak ID:
195552
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.3.2018.
Posjeta: 679 *